me its invariable attendant
denunciations, imprisonments, exile, to all who were suspected of a love
of liberty, whether it had impelled them to deeds, or only influenced
their words.

Mazzini, though a very young man at this period, was already known in
Italy as an author. He had published a weekly literary Gazette, at Genoa,
in 1828, called the "_Indicatore Genovese,_" but this journal being
strangled, ere the year was out, under the double supervision of a civil
and an ecclesiastical censorship, he began another at Leghorn under the
title of the "_Indicatore Livornese_" which in a few months succumbed
under the same fate. He then beguiled his forced inactivity with
furnishing an admirable essay on European literature, and other
contributions, to the "_Antologia di Firenze_," but the review was made
the subject of a prosecution, soon after its commencement, at the
instigation of the Austrian government, and was finally suppressed. Under
these circumstances it was not likely that Mazzini would escape the fate
of his party. He was put under arrest, along with many others, though it
should seem that the strongest accusation which could be brought against
him was that he indulged in habits of thinking; for when his father went
to the governor of the city to inquire what offense his son had committed,
that could authorize his arrest, the worthy functionary, who appears
himself to have belonged to the _Dogberry_ faction, could only allege that
the young man was "in the habit of walking every evening in the fields and
gardens of the suburbs, alone, and wrapped in meditation;" wisely adding,
as his own comment on the matter, "What on earth can he have at his age to
think about? we do not like so much thinking on the part of young people,
without knowing the subject of their thoughts."

Mazzini and his companions were tried at Turin by a commission of
Senators, embodied for the purpose; they were all acquitted for want of
any evidence against them, of evil acts or intentions: nevertheless
Mazzini, notwithstanding this virtual acknowledgment of his innocence, was
treated with the severity due only to convicted guilt, and detained five
months in solitary imprisonment, in the fortress of Savona; a tyrannical
act of injustice, not likely to turn the current of his thoughts, or to
cure him of his meditative propensities. At length his prison doors were
reluctantly opened to him--he was free to depart, but not to remain in
Italy; a